


Terriers of Conflict Resolution

by dogmatix, norcumi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, The West Wing
Genre: 17 is secretly Oscar the Grouch, Crack, Dogs Of War fixit, GFY, Gen, Goa'uld Jedi, past Charlie/Zoey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 07:16:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12271554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogmatix/pseuds/dogmatix, https://archiveofourown.org/users/norcumi/pseuds/norcumi
Summary: The Qui-Gon, Tahl, Obi-Wan, and 17 quartet are famous (some would say infamous) for being able to find trouble, even if they're looking in the most unlikely of places, or not looking at all.Crashlanding on a small, backwater planet straddling the Outer Rim and Unknown Regions, they look set to continue that trend.





	Terriers of Conflict Resolution

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Star to Steer By](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3514793) by [dogmatix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogmatix/pseuds/dogmatix), [norcumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/norcumi/pseuds/norcumi). 



> Crack inspired by Star to Steer by and the desire to FIX West Wing's Dogs of War somehow led to this bit of crack. Much of the West Wing tweaks are based upon Aaron Sorkin's commentary about how he originally planned to take the start of Season 5. For those who want a potentially spoilery primer, please see the end notes.

Fitzwallace didn’t want to make the call. Honestly, if he could have passed this particular duty off to anyone else, he would, but that was the problem with being Chairman of the Joint Chiefs: there was nobody left to pass the buck _to_.

He picked up the phone, exchanged pleasantries with Margaret, and then took a deep breath as the secretary connected him to Leo.

The Chief of Staff picked up with a heavy sigh. “Hey, Fitz, can you make it quick? Everybody but me wants my job and I don’t know which dozen fires to put out first today.”

“Good afternoon, sir. Afraid I can’t do that.”

“Ok, so what fire do you have to add to the pile?”

Fitz grimaced and settled back in his chair. “There was an incident early yesterday in Bumfuck, Idaho.”

There were about three seconds of silence, which was two more than he’d expected. “I’m pretty sure that’s not an actual place,” Leo drawled, sounding amused.

“Would it make a difference if I actually named the place?”

“No, then I’d just ask where it is.”

Which was exactly what he’d expected. “And I’d tell you it’s in the bumfuck nowhere middle of Idaho.”

“Right. So. Incident?”

“A small, manned aircraft crashed into a farmer’s potato field in the small hours of the morning.”

The was the faint background creak of a chair, and Leo suddenly sounded tired. “Oh boy. I hadn’t heard one of ours went down– ”

“Not ours.”

“...Russian?”

The words were harder than he’d expected. “Think a little further away than that.”

The pause was deafening. “Please tell me we know where this thing came from.”

“I can’t, and it gets worse.”

“So help me, if there’s one word about little green men– ”

“No. Not exactly.”

Oh, he did not like that pause. Finally there was a deep sigh. “Is this revenge for Big Block of Cheese Day? Did Josh put you up to this?”

There were times when Fitz was very, very glad he wasn’t part of actual White House staff. From everything he’d heard about the day where the administration granted interviews to the weirder interest groups, that would be several of them. “No joke.”

“I was afraid you’d say that. How’s it get worse?”

“It’s looking like a controlled crash, and three survivors walked away from it. The local cops have them in custody, and would like to know what to do with them.”

* * *

Jimmy Russel had always wanted to be a state trooper. It was just one of those things. He’d found out that it wasn’t quite as cool as he’d always hoped when he was younger, but there was always something satisfying about putting on The Hat in the morning.

He didn’t know what to make of... _this,_ though.

The station was tiny, built for a one-horse town that’d never gotten much bigger, and they only had two largish cells, on the theory that someday there might be a rampaging crowd of college kids on a road trip or something. They stood empty except when one of the locals got a bit too free with some moonshine.

So coming on shift with three people being held was a little weird.

Getting pulled aside and then warned that the Captain was waiting for word from the government about what to do with them – well, that’s when he wanted to call bullshit.

He’d _totally_ called bullshit when he was informed that they’d exploded something in the Thompson’s west field. He’d known that it was one hell of a prank when that explosion was corrected into a crash – of a frikkin’ _spaceship_.

Then Beth had hauled his protesting butt over to the holding area, because she was going off duty and he was coming on, and they needed to verify that everything was cool in there.

The lady was in the left hand cell, sitting crosslegged like she was at a yoga class. A black woman with her hair up in a bun, she looked like she was tall and she was definitely well-muscled. She was wearing riding boots and some kinda criss-crossy top that looked vaguely Asian and weirdly formal.

Pretty, and kinda exotic, but nothing too weird.

Then she opened up her eyes and _looked_ at him.

“Jeeeesus,” he whispered, because those weren’t human eyes. They were green and yellow and _striped_ , and it didn’t help that she did this little eyebrow arch like she was asking ‘what is this?’ like a disapproving school teacher.

There was movement from the right, and a burst of sudden babel from the skinny one lying on the thin and lumpy mattress.

“Oh Gawd,” Beth grumbled. “Will he never shut up?”

Skinny guy might be loud, but Jimmy’s attention fixed on the most dangerous looking dude he’d ever laid eyes on. He recognized a soldier when he saw one. Dude was Latino or Native or something, and he was seated on the floor like the lady. He was in some kind of black...scuba suit thing, which showed off a terrifying amount of muscle for someone that might not actually be that tall. Dark curly hair in a military cut, flat glare, and looking about ready to tear down the whole station if he could get out of the same yoga pose the lady was in.

Mr. Talkative jumped up from the cot and stepped in to block Jimmy’s view. He didn’t _mean_ to yelp and recoil, but Beth didn’t look like she blamed him. Mr. Talkative was a skinny drink of water, and if he ever shut up and stopped moving he might be able to double as a mummy. He had dark, wrinkled skin, and a flat nose, and the desiccated look Hollywood loved. The three spiky things sticking out along both sides of the jaw were weird, and he also had green thick goggles that looked like they might be medicinal – or his eyes were inhumanly large, not like _that_ was a stretch.

The weirdest part was the white shirt and coarse pants tucked into pirate boots – the whole thing screamed ‘I watched too much Peter Pan and I can only wish I were Hook’ levels of pirate.

“That’s. Uh. Hell of a Halloween costume.”

“Yeah, six months early. You should see the tac gear that attaches to Grumpy’s suit.”

He really, really didn’t want to.

Mr. Talkative launched into a something that sounded less offended, but more pompous. He rambled on for a bit, ending with some proud declaration about Honda, his hands on his hips and head at a snotty angle.

Grumpy looked like he was seriously considering adding homicide to the charges of reckless driving of a spaceship into someone else’s property.

Well, Jimmy sure as shit believed _now_.

* * *

Jimmy was not paid enough to have houseguests. He was barely paid enough to babysit aliens, and honestly? That’s how it was turning out. The station was footing the bill for the motel, putting him and Beth in adjoining rooms. Beth shared with Tahl, and Jimmy shared with Hondo and Tad. The alien soldier’s name wasn’t really ‘Tad,’ it was ‘Ta’raysh E’tad,’ but pronouncing that was a bit of a challenge for Jimmy, who’d flunked high school Spanish. Tad was the polar opposite of Hondo – where Hondo never shut up, Tad never started conversations with Jimmy or Beth. He’d answer questions, sure, but talking didn’t seem to be Tad’s thing.

For reasons Jimmy couldn’t understand, Tahl kept suggesting ‘Obeewon’ as a name for Tad, which made no sense but got her an exasperated look from Tad every time. Or maybe an annoyed look. Exasperated annoyance was Tad's default setting in all things, and especially when it came to Hondo. Jimmy couldn't blame him for that one.

Seriously. Dude was an alien, and already passable at English after three weeks on planet. Didn’t Jimmy just regret that one. Ok, so Hondo wasn’t _that_ bad, just...obviously not someone you would want to buy a used car from.

It’d been a busy three weeks since the station had taken in The Arrivals. The government expressed interest, but also doubt, and when they took photos of Hondo, the alien grasped enough of what was going on that he _posed_ so everyone thought it was a prank.

So they had to wait. They allowed the prisoners TV, and someone – Jimmy still had no idea who – had suggested Sesame Street, which had gone over astonishingly well. Drove everyone else bonkers, but the three aliens soaked up English like sponges.

Like many, many, _many_ things about them, it was uncanny.

They’d been reasonably well behaved, and no one wanted to press charges, so they weren’t under official arrest anymore. They were remaining in custody, just no one deserved to be in the drunk tank for days on end, let alone weeks. So now they were at the motel, and the diner next door had several waitresses who’d practically adopted them – Hondo had proposed marriage to all of them at least once, gotten smacked five different times, and he’d professed eternal love for the cook often enough that the man’s wife had come in and Had Words with Hondo.

Thank God, Jimmy hadn’t been on shift for that one.

It was another evening of the Arrivals being quiet and intent on the TV, Tahl mouthing along with some of the words, Hondo cackling over his favorite character of the moment, and Tad trying to pretend he wouldn’t fight everyone for the position as Oscar the Grouch’s Biggest Fan.

The door slammed open, making Jimmy and Beth jump. His hand twitched towards his gun – which he didn’t have on him anyways – and he couldn’t help but notice that Hondo hit the deck between the beds, while Tahl and Tad were both on their feet and looking ready to rumble.

“Please tell me you’ve seen the news!” Kim the receptionist said urgently, gripping the doorknob.

Upon seeing Elmo and Big Bird, she glanced around frantically. Tahl grabbed and tossed the remote to her before Kim could ask – uncanny, but Jimmy was more worried about a new alien fleet invading or something and didn’t that say horrible things about his life lately.

Two seconds later, his heart was in his stomach instead because Kim flipped to one of the major networks, which should have been showing summer reruns of stupid comedy shows. Instead, a wide-eyed news anchor was announcing that the President’s youngest daughter had been kidnapped.

* * *

The mission has started as a straightforward one to deal with a group of pirates that had been kicking up trouble along one of the Outer Rim routes. Tahl and Qui-Gon had been sent, along with Obi-Wan and 17. 17, in particular, had been eager for this one.

Finding Hondo Ohnaka in the brig of the main ship had been an unexpected delight, save for the fact that he’d thrown himself at their mercy with as much ridiculous melodrama as always. That meant they were hauling him out as a rescue, which meant that when things started exploding, it was a bit difficult to get to an escape shuttle. The hyperdrive had lasted long enough to get them away, but there was rather a lot of _fire_ onboard when they’d made a controlled crash on some backwater planet.

Given what she’d seen of their media, she and Qui-Gon were in agreement: they were so far from home, the natives didn’t even know about life on other planets except in the realms of fantasy.

Their educational media was good, at least. Strange, but good, though Qui-Gon swore there were several songs he would not ever get out of his brain now and he rather resented how _catchy_ they were.

The last few days, though, had been sadly educational in a lot of new – unfortunate – ways. The local leader’s daughter had been kidnapped by persons unknown, leading to him stepping down and some kind of rival temporarily taking his place. There was unrest in a place the news would not stop referring to as middle-east, though questions and maps provided few useful answers as to why there were such absurd naming conventions in use.

A spike of astonishment, excitement, and revulsion pulled her eyes to the TV. It had been yet another press conference – such things were universal – only now they were breaking in with actual news, and aerial footage of a largish set of buildings in rural landscape.

“Good, good good,” Hondo declared. “They finally found the girl. Now maybe something interesting will be shown!”

17 glared at Hondo, but it was Obi-Wan who muttered, “I’m so sorry this has been _boring_ for you.”

“Tsh! Of course it’s boring! No grand fight scenes, no thrill of the chase, just some lady standing up and saying ‘we have no information please call the number!’ Do I look like I like such drivel? Nonono, only boring Jedi and politicians enjoy that sort of thing!”

# _It’s a standoff_ ,# Qui-Gon said, sounding pensive. He kept scanning the lines of military people onscreen that were spreading out in a perimeter. # _Valuable hostage, lots of weapons._ #

“Good lord, that’s the Lawton’s place,” Beth said, shock rippling through her. “What’re terrorists doing holed up out here? I mean, they’re Qumari, right?” she asked, referencing the dominant theory about who had kidnapped the leader’s daughter and why.

“That’s what the ransom note said.” Jimmy shook his head. “Quoted right offa some manifest that came out a week ago.”

# _A setup,_ # Qui-Gon hissed.

# _For what purpose?_ #

# _A planet with this many internal divisions? I wouldn’t even begin to speculate._ #

Hondo whistled. “Nearby?” he asked Jimmy, who nodded while still looking far too pale.

Obi-Wan mentally nudged at Tahl and Qui-Gon. # _We should do something_.#

Tahl bit back a nasty grin. # _Well, we DO have a nice convenient distraction just waiting to be poked with a stick._ # Her gaze flicked towards Hondo, who was still talking with the locals.

17’s smirk was tiny, and terrifying as ever. # _Please. Allow me._ #

* * *

Charlie Young had seen and done a lot of things since his mom had died, and even more since he’d ended up as the body man to the President of the United States. He’s thought dating said president’s daughter had been a little terrifying.

It had nothing on standing just outside the perimeter of a standoff where Zoey was being held hostage.

He wasn’t technically supposed to be in Idaho, but President Bartlet had been going nuts, since there was no way in hell he’d be allowed in state with Zoey being held here, no matter what demands her kidnappers had.

His personal aide, however, who was no longer dating Zoey – that was a slightly different story. All Charlie had to do was keep his head down, wear a ball cap, and not draw attention to himself. Should be easy.

Except he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stand the thought of what Zoey might be going through, so here he was, trying not to get too close to the SWAT guy on guard while all sane people were off at dinner.

There was just enough light left, and he was looking in just the right direction, that he saw two people hop the old stone wall on the left border of the property. They weren’t dressed like military – jeans and dark t-shirts. There was no way they should have been there in the first place: no one went in or out, and there were a _lot_ of military folks keeping everything in place from the outside.

From the inside, there were apparently a whole bunch of overly armed fundies.

Either way: no through traffic.

“Shit!” the SWAT guy cursed, fumbling for his radio mic, which was the first sign Charlie had that he wasn’t imagining things. In the meantime, the two lunatics closed in on the house, moving at a low crouch and speeds that honestly? Charlie was no expert, but it looked _impossible_. No one moved that fast, that smooth, and especially not in a crouch.

Shots started to blast out from from the farmhouse, the SWAT guy was yammering away, and somehow the two people weren’t getting shot off their feet. Every now and again one of them would wave a hand like they were swatting off flies or cobwebs, and there were some serious jukes left and right, but they maintained that impossible charge forward.

As press and concerned military folks swarmed out of various places to the cordon, the two people reached the house. They pressed up against the wall, while some asshole inside started shouting on a bullhorn. The bulkier – male? – figure turned to face the house, then raised a hand like he was going to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

His arm jerked back, and instead of rabbits or hats, half the outside of the wall peeled off and went flying. Silence started to fall over the cordon, and the woman – yeah, _definitely_ a woman when she got backlit like that – did some Cirque du Soleil impossible backflip at high speeds into the place, _blurring_ as she hauled butt past people. Before anyone could aim at her, bulkier dude was there, and kung-fuing his way through people like he did this every day before breakfast.

It was like the movies, only faster and bloodier and then the SWAT guy’s radio started blaring.

“Unidentified subject at the south window! Third story they’re jumping–! JESUS! That – DON’T SHOOT DON’T SHOOT SUSPECT HAS BOOKBAG!”

Charlie whipped around, heart in his throat as he could see the tall woman hurtling around the corner, Zoey in her arms looking terrified – but safe.

* * *

It was dumb and Zoey knew it was dumb, but given her week, she wasn’t gonna let dumb stop her. She was in a military helicopter, under the watchful eyes of more medical personnel than she liked to think about (there were a lot of things she really, really didn’t want to think about). Charlie was snugged up on one side, and the Special Forces lady who’d pulled the Superman move was on the other. SuperWoman’s buddy sat across from them, alert and a bit too obvious like the best members of – of her security teams when she wanted some creep to back off. She liked him – quiet, intimidating, and – yeah, ok, it was dumb but not-white helped a lot.

It’d been a really, really bad week.

A bit before the silence in her head got too bad, SuperWoman shifted a little. “Zoey, right?”

Charlie looked like he was gonna jump in and tell her to back off, but to be honest she might scream if there wasn’t something a little normal right now. Dumb icebreakers would be awesome. “Yeah. Who’re you?”

“I’m Jedi Tahl, and my...student is Jedi Ta’raysh E’tad.”

‘Jedi’? That was a weird title. She had to wonder what it meant. Israeli, maybe? Oh no, if her Dad had called in Israeli special forces, that would be awful and she had no idea what to do with that. “I, uh, don’t know if I got that, sorry.”

“Tad,” the man rumbled. He sounded grumpy, but it was the normal kind of grump, not...hostile.

Tahl smiled in a way that was almost as reassuring. “He might also answer to ‘Seventeen’.”

“He will not,” Tad grumped back at her.

“Why seventeen? That’s a funny nickname,” Charlie said.

Tad hesitated, then shrugged. “That’s what Ta’raysh E’tad means.”

Ok. That was a little weird.

“What language?” Charlie sounded honestly interested, and she appreciated that he asked instead of her.

Tad looked at Charlie, then shot Tahl a helpless look and a shrug.

Zoey looked over as Tahl said something kinda short, in a funny collection of syllables. To be honest? It was the first time she’d actually looked her rescuer in the face. She’d still been woozy and tied up in a corner when the attic door had burst open, and she’d hallucinated all sorts of glowing blues everywhere as the woman had leaned over, snapped the zip ties and hoisted Zoey in her arms. There’d been one heck of a hallucination about them leaping out the attic window and landing without a roll or anything, but that was probably the drugs.

But now? Looking at Tahl’s face, right in the eyes?

No _wonder_ everyone was staring at Tahl and Tad like that. Those eyes were definitely not human.

Zoey glance over at Tad. No, his eyes were normal. Oh no. Was she still hallucinating? “Uh. Charlie?”

“Yeah?” Oh _no_. He had the too-calm, too-even voice that meant something significant was happening. Zoey looked at him, and he smiled at her. He was trying for reassuring, but there was something kinda strained to his expression. “Just noticed, huh?”

“Am – am I still– ”

“You’re fine. They’re just, uh, a little special?”

Zoey looked back, and Tahl smiled. It was a kind smile, reassuring. She swallowed. “Oh no. What kind of strings did Dad _pull_?”

Tahl laughed. “We were not asked to play, actually. We brought ourselves.”

“We crashed a few weeks ago,” Tad grumbled. “No one wanted to meet with us.” He snorted. “But given Hondo....”

“You crashed a Honda?”

Tahl snickered. “He crashed us, you could say.” When she saw how confused that left Zoey, Tahl raised a hand. “We have a...friend, but he is being treated well. We saw the news, and when we saw you were nearby, we had to help.”

...Maybe she hadn’t hallucinated that leap from a third story window.

Silence settled back in, but now she had something different to poke at. It was a good ten minutes later before she asked, “So, English isn’t your native language?”

“No.”

Oh maaan. She tried to grin, and while it felt weird, she didn’t think she was failing. “You mind talking to my Dad? He could really do with a good distraction right now, and I’d like if he was kept too busy to try to bundle me up in bubble wrap for the rest of forever.”

Tahl had a really nice smile as she gave a graceful little bow. “It would be an honor.”

* * *

Jed was incredibly glad that Zoey’s rescuers were willing to wait a day before he met with them. There’d been some kind of kerfluffle that Leo had handled, something about their background, but for God’s sake they’d _run into_ a den of well-armed religious wackos – he was ready to pardon just about anything for that.

Leo wanting to sit him down and have a talk first was a little annoying, but really, he knew limits on grand gestures and he wouldn’t promise them the moon or even a state or two – not even in jest. Probably.

He hustled into Leo’s office, noting the tense look that meant something else big was going down, and he just hoped he wouldn’t _actually_ have to pardon anyone. “I have some people to thank, what do I need to know?”

Leo hesitated, then gestured towards a chair. “How about you have a seat, Mr. President? This might take a bit longer than you think.”

“I don’t care how many parking tickets they’ve racked up, they saved Zoey.” He sat anyways, because Leo was usually annoying and right when he did that sort of thing. “What’s the problem?”

Leo sat down and considered some of the papers strewn across his desk for a moment. “Ms. Tahl and Mr...Ta’raysh E’tad – no last names for either of them – have been very cooperative, and relatively pleasant to work with.”

Those were interesting names. “Please tell me they aren’t actually Qumari nationals themselves, because the news room would have a field day with that.”

“Oh, they’re gonna have a field day all right, but no, they’re not Qumari. They’re not American, or anything else we’ve run across.”

What? Jed leaned forward. “I don’t understand. What are you saying, Leo?”

His old friend looked up and met his eyes. “Their fingerprints aren’t in any database we have access to, and I called in a few favors just to make sure. There were enough cameras – mostly law enforcement, thank God – on site that I could take a look at footage of the rescue, and– ” He shook his head. “I’ve seen some of the best soldiers in the world go all out and do some incredible things. But what these people did – It’s literally impossible.”

He could feel the hair on the back of his neck start to stand up. Leo didn’t joke this sort of way, even if he’d been stupid enough to think this was a joking matter in the first place. “Spell it out for me.”

“Mr. President, two people with no camouflage, no body armor, nothing but basic street clothes charged a well-fortified farmhouse with twenty-three armed and dangerous people inside who have been _practicing_ to bring about World War Three and thus Rapture. They made it across a football field’s length in time that would make professional athletes cry, utterly unscathed. They didn’t avoid getting hit because they were lucky. They avoided getting hit by moving out of the way of the bullets. In two instances that I have on tape, they _moved the bullets out of the way_.”

“What, like magic?” He wanted to scoff. He couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“Same kind of handwave that Mr. Ta’raysh E’tad used to remove a good section of exterior wall. He then proceeded to brawl his way through the house – bringing no weapon with him, though apparently that changed pretty fast – killing at least five and wounding a hell of a lot more.”

Jed sat, stunned, his innate skepticism warring with his complete trust in Leo.

“Meanwhile Ms. Tahl took two flights of stairs in record time, shoved someone – literally, again – through a wall, then jumped from a third story window and ran away from the scene without any broken bones.”

He had three daughters, several grandchildren, and his wife was a doctor. He knew that wasn’t how bones worked.

“To top it off?” Leo picked up a photo and passed it over. “That’s Ms. Tahl.” At first glance it was just a close-up shot of the woman, who had a politely puzzled expression but didn’t look disturbed. “Her eyes. Those aren’t contacts.”

The second glance made him stop. It looked like gold and green stripes around the pupil – not bands of color like partial Heterochromia, but actual regular _stripes_.

“So does this make them illegal aliens?” he asked glibly, running on auto-pilot.

Leo snorted, not quite a laugh. “I got a call from Fitz a few weeks ago, but with Hoynes and everything it slipped through the cracks and the people who got assigned to deal with things thought it was all a joke anyways. A crash – controlled crash, according to these two – and three survivors. The fine Idaho State Troopers have been holding on to them ever since.”

He’d had enough hysterical giggling fits over the years that he knew not to give in to the urge. “Well. Looks like they ended up at the right place, at...almost the right time. Who’s the third?”

“We’re bringing him in along with the cops that have been working with them. They should be here later today.”

Jed tossed the photo back onto Leo’s desk, leaning back and scrubbing a hand over his face. “So we have two cooperative, but very dangerous... _aliens_ waiting somewhere, I presume under guard, after they saved my daughter’s life.”

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded slowly, chewing over the possibilities. Then he looked Leo right in the eyes. “When do I get to thank them?”

* * *

“Mr. President?”

Jed looked up as Charlie nodded to him from the door. “They’re here.”

Subtle, deep breath. Time to meet some aliens. “Send them in.”

“Yes, sir.” Charlie hesitated a moment. “I just – for what it’s worth, I think they’re good people.”

He nodded slowly, because that did have weight. As Charlie slipped out, Jed stood, still chewing over the implications.

He both did, and didn’t expect the dozen soldiers that made up an ‘honor guard’ and proceeded to take up positions around the room. He already had another four secret service agents looming behind him as if he were some kind of mafioso – this felt like overkill.

Still, he had plenty of practice pretending everything was normal. He bustled around the desk with his most sincere smile – and it was actually sincere – to shake hands. “Ms. Tahl, Mr. Ta’raysh E’tad, I’m President Josiah Bartlet, and it’s a genuine honor to meet you.”

Both of them returned the handshakes without any of the tentativeness he somewhat expected from military types – and Ta’raysh E’tad was _unquestionably_ a military type! – and then Ms. Tahl gave a polite little bow, her hands clasping her forearms. “The honor is ours, Mr. President.”

She didn’t seem to expect a bow back, and he wasn’t sure of the protocol anyways. “I can’t begin to thank you enough for the service you’d done for me and my family, and the country as a whole.”

“We were glad to help – it was the right thing to do. I am just glad that we were in a place where we could do so.” Her eyes were very uncanny in person, but aside from that – and being incredibly tall – she seemed perfectly normal.

“I’m given to understand your vehicle had some, ah, mechanical difficulties.”

She had a nice, wry smile, too. “Yes. It should be fixable, with time.”

“That’s wonderful to hear. I do hope we’ll be able to have some conversations in the meantime.”

She hesitated a moment, studying him. Her eyes seemed a little brighter, not quite glowing per se but he could imagine that which was...weird. Really weird. “I would like that. But if I may, I think we should talk of a…complicated subject.”

Uh oh. He appreciated that nobody did any gun hefting or something like that. “Oh?”

“I am sorry, but we’re still learning the language so I might not be as quick to talk about this as I would like. I would however like to say for everyone watching that we mean no harm to you or anyone here, by our standards or yours.”

“Well, I think we all appreciate that.”

This smile was warmer, less wry. “I wish to talk about how Ta’raysh E’tad and I were not the only ones to help with the rescue.”

“Yes, that was mentioned. Your friend – I’m afraid no one’s gotten me his name – should be arriving later.”

Ta’raysh E’tad looked pained, the same way Josh would if someone they needed to curry favor from had just gone and complimented a Republican. Tahl nodded. “That is Hondo Ohnaka – I’m sure he would be _just fine_ with just calling him Hondo. He was part of the rescue– ” Not with that slight grimace, he wasn’t. “– but that was not who I wanted to speak of. There are not two of us here now, but four.”

Oh good, there was the tensing of every single other person in the room. He made sure to keep his stance casual, because this much lead up was more sincere of good faith, rather than less. “Excuse me?”

“We Jedi can be…complicated, to those who do not know us, so we stayed quiet. Our two friends, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, helped with the rescue, and should be noted.”

“And where are they?”

Tahl put a hand to her breastbone. “They are right here.” She inclined her head a fraction and closed her eyes, and when they opened they were now in shades of rich blue. There was a shiver of movement from the security team, but they didn’t do anything rash.

“Mr. President,” Tahl declared in a completely different voice – this one deep and masculine and _nothing_ like the woman’s voice from before. “It is an honor to meet you. My name is Qui-Gon Jinn.” He – she? – did the bow, then carefully, slowly gestured towards Ta’raysh E’tad. That man now also had bright blue eyes, and a pleasant smile on his face that should have looked out of place. The body language was totally different – more relaxed, more _casual_ , and somehow he’d gone from a stiff, uncomfortable looking man who looked like he’d grump at everything to someone pleasant and open.

“This is my student, Obi-Wan Kenobi.” He also bowed, and Jed nodded back.

Ok. Okay, this was...different. He had no idea what he was talking to, and he was perhaps unreasonably fascinated. “Tell you what. How about we have a seat, because I think we have a lot to talk about.”

‘Qui-Gon’ even smiled differently, for all that it was just as gracious. “We would like that. Thank you, Mr. President.”

**Author's Note:**

> West Wing - political drama about a Democratic US White House
> 
> Star to Steer By - a Star Wars/Stargate fanfic, where the Jedi are a symbiotic species that require a host to fully access the Force (hosting is voluntary and comes with some paperwork and set terms, because Jedi)


End file.
